


Choices

by hellvetica



Category: Person of Interest (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-18
Updated: 2013-03-18
Packaged: 2017-12-05 17:36:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/725990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hellvetica/pseuds/hellvetica
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Reese’s life was full of difficult choices.  This was just one more.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Choices

**Author's Note:**

> Just another take on the aftermath of 2x18.

He poured himself a drink and took up a position in front of the large windows of his loft. He sipped the amber liquid slowly and felt the warmth spread outward from his throat. Staring morosely into the night, silhouetted against the room lights behind him, he knew he made an easy target, but at the moment he didn’t care. He sipped his drink, feeling it burn as he swallowed and thought about the choices he had made in his life. Seems he was always making choices, not the ‘What shirt should I wear today?’ kind that most people made, but the ‘Who lives or who dies variety?’

He was used to making choices when he was in the Army. His brothers and comrades-in arms knew he could be relied on to be there when he was needed. He could be counted on to ignore a hail of gunfire if they needed him. He had done so many times during his tours of service.

Later on at the Agency, he had been numbed to the decisions. Someone else made the choices and he just made the decision to do as he was told. After all, it was the right thing to do. Or so he believed at the time. He could have a drink at the bar and then turn to the couple at the nearby table and end their lives, because it was the right thing to do. That was about the time he had grown to depend on the alcohol to numb the pain of the choices he was making daily.

He had made the decision that Jessica deserved better. That had been one of the harder choices he had ever made. He regretted that decision more than most, especially when he learned of her death at the hands of her husband. He didn’t regret the choice he had made in dealing with her husband. No, that one decision he did not regret.

He poured himself another drink and walked across the expanse of living space to take up another position in front of the windows. The park below was dark and deserted but he knew if the agency was closing in again there were several spots that afforded a clear line of sight. Usually he stayed back from the windows, but tonight he didn’t care.

He knew it was the scotch, and he knew there was nothing behind the smile in the darken window.

He had been trained to accept the physical pain, to rise above it and use it to meet his end. He was not equipped to deal with the emotional pain of loss. After Jessica, he had decided that the pain was too much to bear and made the decision to end his life. Numbed by the alcohol he had allowed himself to be taken into police custody after an altercation on the subway with a bunch of young clueless punks. He knew it would only be hours before the agency or the FBI sent someone to collect him and make him disappear, make his pain disappear. Instead Harold’s lawyer had literally plucked him from the jaws of a sure death.

He had made the decision to help with the numbers because Harold had convinced him it was a route out of the darkness and back to the living. Harold had promised him redemption. Not in so many words, but in his eyes and he had grasped at the lifeline Harold was offering. Bit-by-bit, number-by-number, he had made the choice to live again. Bit-by-bit, number-by-number, he had built that life around Harold.

Except Harold was still in love with Grace! He had declared that love tonight. In listening to Harold, he knew he did not stand a chance. 

“Some of us don’t get to grow old with the one we love.” He was looking at Harold, but the realization and the words were directed at himself. He felt as if he had been kicked in the stomach. He had been a fool to think he stood a chance with Harold. Harold would never move on from Grace. His eyes narrowed and his mouth hardened into a line of defeat. There was nothing more to say. The overwhelming pain in his chest was back.

Once more a decision loomed in front of him. Could he go on living with this pain again? Could he swallow it down and continue to work or would it consume him as it had with Jessica. The scars on his body gave testimony to the healing power of his physical self, but this injury was more serious, more deadly. He had been broken once before and was not sure if he could survive another attack to his heart.

The glass in his hand was empty. He crossed back to the kitchen and poured one last drink for the night and tossed it down. Maybe now he would be able to sleep, if not, there was an unopened bottle behind the box of cereal. 

Alcohol had blunted the pain of loosing Jessica; maybe it would do the same for Harold. He briefly wondered if Joan still had his stash of belongings before he passed out on the couch.


End file.
